jimstaro's blog

Nov 5, 2010 - The United States has been defending its human rights record before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council.

A 30-strong US delegation was grilled by more than 80 states on issues ranging from the Guantanamo detention centre to racial discrimination. Switzerland called for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

The US was the 136th UN member state to be scrutinised by allies and adversaries in the UN rights body, as the Obama administration opens itself up to a council that was shunned by his predecessor.

US Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, head of the high-level delegation, said she was honoured to present the first US Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

November 5, 2010 - A group of Iraqis are suing for a broad U.K. inquiry into the torture and abuse they say they have suffered at the hands of British soldiers and interrogators.

Lawyers acting for more than 140 Iraqi civilians are challenging the British government's refusal to hold a public investigation into the treatment of detainees in British-occupied areas of Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. {read rest}

New CIA Report Says Fatal Shootdown of Missionary Plane Could Have Been Prevented

5 November 2010 - CIA officials caused the deaths of an American mother and child in a tragic plane shootdown above Peru, according to a blistering new report, by operating a counter-drug program outside the rules for six years and then lying about it to their superiors.

Markings Must Be Based on Statute, Regulation or Government-wide Policy,
With Public Input on Implementation

Washington D.C., November 4, 2010 – President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information”{four page pdf} issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.

So this is the game they want to keep playin, just heard on the News they're going to try and do a Clinton on this Administration investigative hearings every week!! OK Now's the time for the DoJ to open up criminal investigations into the crimes of the bush administration and the republican congresses especially as to the Wars and especially Iraq, the Brits and others already have a ton of testimony to start picking from on what was going on here and there!! Way over time for Accountability as the World, and especially Iraqi's and Afgans, has been watching and waiting!!!!

November 02, 2010 - INVESTIGATIONS into allegations of abuse by British troops in Iraq will be led by a retired detective from Staffordshire.

The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) is expected to take two years to investigate dozens of allegations of mistreatment.

The team is led by retired detective chief superintendent Geoff White, the former head of Staffordshire CID, pictured right, and was set up in response to a number of claims of abuse of Iraqis by British personnel.

A full public inquiry remains an option, if IHAT uncovered "serious and systemic" abuse, Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said yesterday.

4 November 2010 (IRIN) - The latest attack on 31 October on Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, which left 58 people dead, and warnings by al-Qaeda that more killings will follow, is raising questions about the future of one of the oldest Christian congregations in the Middle East.

“We’ve had enough now. Leaving Iraq has become a must,” said Jamal Habo Korges, a 44-year-old mechanic. “We’ve been suffering since 2003 and we can’t take it any more. The latest carnage is the final warning,” the father of three told IRIN.

In his new memoir, former president says his reply was "Damn right," when asked if CIA could waterboard detainee.

Nov. 3, 2010 - Human rights experts have long pressed the administration of former President George W. Bush for details of who bore ultimate responsibility for approving waterboarding of CIA detainees, the simulated drownings that many legal experts say was illicit torture.

In his memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.

All you younger Vets to another, of many, DeJa-Vu moments, this time the Country can't afford what's comin!!

With the house take over and actually now, not in numbers except just enough, they also control the senate, no need to filibuster just vote in lockstep as they did the previous decade they controlled, and especially under the bush, as well as the total obstruction the last four years.

Got Veterans needs, there are still plenty, forget about even Hearings let alone Congressional Investigations into, as to any tweaking of the GI Bill more likely rollback on that and much that has been happening in the VA and from the Administration as to Military their Families and Veterans. These so called 'teabaggers' Don't Want To Pay, Even The Vets Within!

{Photo: Akmal Dawi/IRIN
Shah Wali, a father of five, forced by fighting to leave Helmand Province and come to Kabul}

3 November 2010 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says it is concerned about the growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) caused by conflict in Afghanistan, and the fact that it is often too dangerous to assist them.

Between June 2009 and September 2010, 120,000 people were forced out of their homes by armed conflict, increasing the number of IDPs to 319,000, it said.

Nov 2, 2010 - A new isolationism is metastasizing in the American body politic. At its heart lies not an urge to avoid war, but an urge to avoid contemplating the costs and realities of war. It sees war as having analgesic qualities - as lessening a collective feeling of impotence, a collective sense of fear and terror. Making war in the name of reducing terror serves this state of mind and helps to preserve it. Marked by a calculated estrangement from war's horrific realities and mercenary purposes, the new isolationism magically turns an historic term on its head, for it keeps us in wars, rather than out of them.

And the 110th and 111th put Veterans and Military personal and their families above War, catching up to What Wasn't Done, and moving further even for us older vets, just previous in the 108th and 109th as they waged Wars of Choice {Afghanistan stopped being about 9/11 as soon as the drums beat at Iraq} and terror on others, creating more hatreds thus enemies towards us {including others around this planet not even in those regions}, not what we are or what we stand for, or did once!! And none of the previous decade has anything to do with any religious ideology, never did and never will!!

November 1, 2010 - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed hope for accountability for atrocities committed by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime during an emotional visit to Cambodia's genocide museum.

A sombre-looking Clinton studied black-and-white photos of gaunt-faced prisoners on display, along with dozens of skulls of victims and paintings of people being tortured, during her visit on Monday.

She later described the tour of Tuol Sleng - the main torture centre of the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s - as a "very disturbing experience," but said she was impressed that Cambodia was confronting its dark history.

A short but good article pointing out two extremely important issues Not being talked about during this campaign cycle especially by those getting the most press {and their very own 24/7 cable channel hyping them}, the so called Mad electorate calling themselves the TEA party. Many, or most, are from the same that brought us these two long running occupations and are supporting those seeking representative jobs from the same political party with no ideology but quickly rubber stamped the credit card of dept and already have stated they won't Work for the Country, in no way to compromise but to raise the obstruction within!

October 31, 2010 - The Department of Defense announced today that a military commission sentenced Omar Khadr to 40 years in confinement after he pleaded guilty to murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying.

October 30, 2010 - American Corporation Caterpillar has Taken a Stand for Humans in Stopping the Sales of Bulldozers that Destroy Homes of Indigenious Peoples Jewish Groups for Peace Rejoice with Millions Around the World

I have remarkable news. The Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers—valued at $50 million—to the Israeli military.(1)

These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families. And they are the very same bulldozers as the one that killed a 23-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie seven years ago when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza.

There is No Problem finding the needed Skilled Worker to bring on a Green Economy, we're all over the Country and World and mostly sitting on our collective butts thanks to the collapse of the economies and the construction industries by the 'highly educated' in the corporate world and found also in the corporate construction offices!

October 31, 2010 - THE parliamentary debate on Australia's involvement in Afghanistan has involved little mention of its implications for our other big conflict, the war on drugs. In Afghanistan, the US and its allies are, once again, propping up Third World drug producers for political purposes.

According to the UN World Drug Report 2010, Afghanistan has produced 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium in recent years. A lot of that has come from the province in which Australian troops are stationed.

This comment by Angle, caught it last night on CBS and my head nearly exploded, shows Exactly what she thinks? about the Soldiers we're sending into these occupations and their families at home waiting, which in turn shows what she, and (R)'s, especially this phony TEA party, think? about us Veterans, All Veterans, as well as National Security!!!!!

October 28, 2010 - Yesterday, Ban Ki Moon visited the UN-backed tribunal that is trying Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity committed under their rule from 1975-79. Over 2 million people were believed to have been killed by the paranoid and brutal regime.In 2006, the “Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed During the Period of Democratic Kampuchea” (A.K.A. the Cambodia Tribunal) opened for business. {read rest}

October 27, 2010 - The U.S. government knows it's awarded nearly $18 billion in contracts for rebuilding Afghanistan over the last three years, but it can't account for spending before 2007.

Thousands of firms received wartime contracts, but the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction found it too difficult to untangle how billions of additional dollars had been spent because of the U.S. agencies' poor recordkeeping.

"Navigating the confusing labyrinth of government contracting is difficult, at best," the inspector general says in a report that was released Wednesday.

The finding raises doubts about whether the U.S. government ever will determine whether taxpayers' money was spent wisely in Afghanistan.

Heard any mention from this so called TEA party, those espousing, their spokespersons {cons,grifters,propagandist.........}, their candidates, those reporting on them and their extremist idea's and no policy idea's, Demanding 'Sacrifice', Finally, by the people of this Country as to the Veterans of Wars they've created the past destructive decade, as well as the rest of us Veterans, as they claimed and still do 'support' for our troops, including veterans among them, Me Neither!

If those who still call themselves republicans have managed to extend on the brain dead population of this country, quickly forgetting their two wars of choice and the emptying of the treasury, and even just win seats in congress the only thing left for this Country to do is Finally hold those Accountable for the already proven crimes against humanity and more, including those congressional republicans who walked in lock step with the previous administrations wants! Everything else related to this Country moving forward will be Stopped dead in it's tracks, what the World Community has sought is the only thing left, Accountability!!

October 27 2010 - One of the organizers of the Sunday vigils for peace in Skowhegan and a supporter of a planned peace march next month left Skowhegan selectmen with more questions than answers Tuesday night.

University students and Buddhist monks, along with local activists and members of Veterans for Peace, are scheduled to march across the state in November to draw attention to the affects of war and war spending on the economy, Mark Roman of Solon said Tuesday.

Veterans for Peace, in conjunction with Waterville Area Bridges for Peace and Justice, are set to walk through central Maine beginning Nov. 2 -- Election Day. The Maine Walk for Peace, Human Needs and Veterans Care is slated to start in Farmington, Roman said.

27 October 2010 - Polish officials investigating a now-shuttered secret CIA prison in this country have given a Saudi terror suspect victim status, a legal advance in the detainee's effort to show he was mistreated by interrogators, officials said Wednesday.

Legal experts said Poland's move to grant the status of victim to Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri recognizes the validity of his claims even as U.S. courts have refused to allow cases involving rendition to move forward for national security reasons.

Members of panel are believed to be concerned about damaging and conflicting evidence revealed since former PM's last appearance

26 October 2010 - Tony Blair is to be summoned back to the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion in light of damaging and conflicting evidence revealed since he appeared as a witness in January.

Members of the Chilcot inquiry are believed to be concerned about evidence in documents released in July showing that the former prime minister was warned by his government's chief law officer that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal the day before he privately assured George Bush he would support US-led military action.

Joining the ranks of the 'enemies', we the 'civil' societies. those we condemn, and use as reason to invade, as we practice and enhance same, against the laws we wrote on the international stage as well as the domestic!!

Exclusive: Methods devised in secret in recent years may breach international law

25 October 2010 - The British military has been training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions, the Guardian has discovered.

Training materials drawn up secretly in recent years tell interrogators they should aim to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this can be achieved.

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